For the second time in three days Canada has been appalled and shocked by the murder of a soldier by a suspected Islamic terrorist.

Once a byword for international peace and prosperity, the “other” Northern American nation is now suffering from attacks hitherto confined to Western nations known as being more active on the international stage.

While the facts of the latest shooting are still being established, here is what we know about Canada’s links to terrorism.

Canada is under attack:

With the shooting dead of a soldier at the Ottawa War Memorial, and the Parliament put under lockdown, Canadians can not escape the fact that they have become targets. The soldier was the second to be murdered in three days, meaning the Canadian authorities must now fear this is the start of a coordinated campaign of terror and will be braced for further assaults over the coming days and weeks.

Commentators were quick to speculate that the first soldier attack, in Quebec on Monday morning, was the work of a “lone wolf”. Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, 53, died of his injuries after he and a colleague were struck by a car driven by Martin Couture-Rouleau, a 25-year-old radicalised supporter of Islamic Jihad who had changed his name to Ahmad LeConverti (Ahmad the Converted). He lay in wait for them for two hours before the attack in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and was shot dead by local police as he drove away. It seems unlikely that the Ottawa shooting is unconnected to the Quebec incidents - but is it the work of a copycat or a coordinated, and possibly continuing, plan of terror?

What we know about Couture-Rouleau:

Officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had been monitoring Couture-Rouleau for some time, confiscating his passport this summer amid concerns that he had become “radicalised”. He is one of 90 extremists identified by the RCMP as likely volunteers to become foreign fighters for groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), an alarmingly high number in a country with a population of only 35 million.

Neighbours said Couture-Rouleau lived in a white-brick house with his father and ran a water pressure cleaning company, but had changed in the last year, growing a beard and donning Islamic-style clothing. His Facebook page was full of threats against the West and praise for Isil.

So there are dozens of other potential Canadian Jihadists at large:

Canada has known for a number of years that it has a problem with radicalised young men becoming foreign fighters. What is alarming is that in preventing them from traveling overseas, these thwarted Islamists may be planning Jihad at home.

The beginning:

Canadian radicalism seems to have begun a little later than in other parts of the Western world. But by 2006, a group which later became known as the Toronto 18 had been apprehended as they plotted a series of terror attacks in the city. One member, Ali Mohamed Dirie, was reported to have been killed last year in Syria. He was sentenced to seven years for the Toronto attacks but served only two.

Canadians have played a surprisingly large role in exporting terror around the globe in recent years:

Ottawa-native Abdirizak Mouled, 24, was said to have been among the group of terrorists who killed dozens of shoppers, including two Canadians, in a shopping mall in Kenya last year.

High school friends Xris Katsiroubas and Ali Medlej, from London, Ontario, died in an attack on a gas plant in Algeria in 2012.

Hassan El Hajj Hassan, 25, is thought to have been responsible for a 2012 Bulgarian bus bombing which targeted Israeli tourists.

And Rudwan Khalil Abubaker and William Plotnikov are among several Candians who died fighting for the jihadi cause in Chechnya.

But it is Iraq and Syria which have proved the biggest draw for Canadians Jihadis in recent months.

Among them is perhaps the most well-known of the radicalised Islamists, Abu Turaab, aka 23-year-old Muhammed Ali, a social media expert who became infamous for cheering on the Isil execution of Western hostages. Originally from Toronto, he is now thought to be fighting for Isil in Syria.

The Canadian government’s response.

Like all nations playing host to Islamic radicals, Canada is alarmed by what is happening. Steven Blaney, the Public Safety Minister, has said: “We are responsible when the Canadian is committing terrorism act abroad. We have to prevent this from happening.” What exactly to do about it is more difficult to identify.

Why Canada - why not?

The reasons why young men (and some young women) become radicalised and some do not has been troubling Western authorities for some time. In many cases, such as the 9/11 suicide bombers or even Osama bin Laden himself, those who are prepared to carry out the most extreme acts are not those who come from the worst global trouble spots where economic and social deprivation is at its peak, such as Palestine, Afghanistan or much of Africa. The most dangerous Jihadists in terms of home-grown attacks are often born and raised in Western nations, usually to families with links to the Middle East or north Africa, and grow up in relative prosperity. One explanation, postulated by Lawrence Wright in Looming Tower, his definitive account of al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11, seems to be that alienation is relative. Those who grow up in environments which may appear free and secure to people in more deprived nations often fail to feel at home either in their adopted country or the land of their parents’ birth, meaning they develop a frustration and disconnection which turns to anger at the happy, prosperous people they see around them. Ironically, Canada’s wealth and peaceableness could be the very thing that makes it a target for those living within it.